DenverInfill Blog gets a facelift

DenverInfill Blog, authored by local urban planner Ken Schroeppel, is a true Denver success story. The nearly six-year-old operation isn't the flashiest blog around, but it does one thing incredibly well, and that's cover Denver development.

All of us old-fashioned journos trying to cover planning and development long ago ceded defeat to Schroeppel, who's constantly breaking development news, eloquently explaining convoluted planning issues and, when necessary, battling against development no-nos, such as all those forlorn downtown parking lots. Best of all, he manages to take one of the driest topics around and somehow, through vivid images and eloquent reporting, make it understandable, compelling and relevant. Somehow he manages to do all this while holding down a full-time job.

Looking for the future of news media? You'll find it at DenverInfill. And now that future's gotten a bit brighter, since this week Schroeppel's unveiled version 2.0 of his blog.

There are still no superfluous bells and whistles - the only images are the beautiful concept drawings he manages to scrounge up from developers all over the city - but it's more modern and user-friendly, with all posts categorized on the right-hand sidebar.

More importantly, the blog itself has a new mission. Instead of just covering downtown infill development, the site will take aim on everything having to do with urbanism all around the metro area, be it transit, public spaces, architecture, sustainability or urban policies. That's a big task, so to help cover it all Schroeppel will be enlisting some savvy colleagues from urban-development circles to chip in and contribute.

"Eventually," writes Schroeppel in his first post on the new site, "the DenverInfill blog will transform into Denver's online magazine for urban planning, design, and development issues, or something to that effect."

All of us newsprint dinosaurs should be very, very afraid. With Schroeppel in full swing, we could eventually become as obsolete as those cruddy old surface lots Schroeppel's helping to eradicate one by one.

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